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Climb to the source of goodness. God of Truth!
All-Just! All-Mighty! I should ill deserve
Thy noblest gift, the gift divine of song,
If, so content with ear-deep melodies
To please all-profitless, I did not pour
Severer strains, . . of Truth.. eternal Truth,
Unchanging Justice, universal Love.

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Such strains awake the Soul to loftiest thoughts; Such strains the blessed Spirits of the Good Waft, grateful incense, to the Halls of Heaven."

The dying notes still murmur'd on the string, When from his throne arose the raptured King. About to speak he stood, and waved his hand, 385 And all expectant sate the obedient band.

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Then just and generous, thus the Monarch cries, "Be thine, Zorobabel, the well-earn'd prize. The purple robe of state thy form shall fold, The beverage sparkle in thy cup of gold, The golden couch, the car, and honour'd chain, Requite the merits of thy favour'd strain, And raised supreme the ennobled race among, Be call'd My Cousin for the victor song. Nor these alone the victor song shall bless, Ask what thou wilt, and what thou wilt possess."

"Fallen is Jerusalem!" the Hebrew cries, And patriot anguish fills his streaming eyes, "Hurl'd to the earth by Rapine's vengeful rod, Polluted lies the temple of our God;

395

400

Far in a foreign land her sons remain,

Hear the keen taunt, and drag the galling chain ;
In fruitless woe they wear the weary years,
And steep the bread of bitterness in tears.

O Monarch, greatest, mildest, best of men,

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Restore us to those ruin'd walls again!
Allow us to rebuild that sacred dome,
To live in liberty, and die at Home.”

So spake Zorobabel. -Thus Woman's praise
Avail'd again Jerusalem to raise,

Call'd forth the sanction of the Despot's nod,
And freed the Nation best beloved of God.

Brixton Causeway, 1793.

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WAT TYLER;

A DRAMA.

TWENTY years ago, upon the surreptitious publication of this notable Drama, and the use which was made of it, I said what it then became me to say in a letter to one of those gentlemen who thought proper to revile me, not for having entertained democratical opinions, but for having outgrown them, and learnt to appreciate and to defend the institutions of my country.

Had I written lewdly in my youth, like Beza,—like Beza, I would ask pardon of God and man; and no considerations should induce me to reprint what I could never think of without sorrow and shame. Had I at any time, like St. Augustine, taught doctrines which I afterwards perceived to be erroneous,and if, as in his case, my position in society, and the estimation in which I was held, gave weight to what I had advanced, and made those errors dangerous to others, like St. Augustine, I would publish my re

tractations, and endeavour to counteract the evil which, though erringly, with no evil intention, I had caused.

Wherefore then, it may be asked, have I included Wat Tyler in this authentic collection of my poetical works? For these reasons,—that it may not be supposed I think it any reproach to have written it, or that I am more ashamed of having been a republican, than of having been a boy. Quicunque ista lecturi sunt, non me imitentur errantem, sed in melius proficientem. Inveniet enim fortasse, quomodo scribendo profecerim, quisquis opuscula mea, ordine quo scripta sunt, legerit.*

I have endeavoured to correct in my other juvenile pieces such faults as were corrigible. But Wat Tyler appears just as it was written, in the course of three mornings, in 1794; the stolen copy, which was committed to the press twenty-three years afterwards, not having undergone the slightest correction of any kind.

* St. Augustine.